Category: Trademarks

Since February 7th the Trademark office has received eight trademark applications for the term LINSANITY. The products identified in applications range from clothing, jewelry, and sport drinks, to eyeglasses and cell phone covers. The only problem is only one of these applications is on behalf of the Knick's Jeremy Lin (Serial 85541426); and it is a basic premise of trademark law that you can not register the name of a living person without that person's written consent. Perhaps more concerning, however, is the attempt of people who know him to cash in on his name - one of the applications is by Roger Montgomery for the purpose of "Business management of sports people" (Serial 85542514) and who the Washington Post identifies as Lin's own agent.
While some of the applicants may try to argue that it is purely coincidental that they want to register the name in the middle of Mr. Lin's hot streak ("by Linsanity, I mean LENS...

In 1992, shoemaker Christian Louboutin began using red lacquer soles on some of its shoes. In 2008, the red soles were registered as mark in the US Patent and Trademark Office, and on January 1, 2008, number 3, 361,597, the “red sole mark” came to life.
In 2012 Louboutin sued Yves St. Laurent ("YSL"). They were seeing red (pun intended) over the recent Yves St. Laurent 2011 Resort collection, which included red-soled shoes, the Louboutin signature brand detail. Louboutin filed a trademark action against YSL, which YSL prominently countered with a counter-suit seeking cancellation of the Louboutin trademark registration. Louboutin responded with a request for a preliminary injunction temporarily preventing YSL from selling the shoes until the dispute was settled. The district court initially denied Loboutin's request largely on the basis that . . ."in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition . . . However, “Color alone “ sometimes ” may be protectable as a...

Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York awarded a default judgment to clothing designer Tory Burch LLC in its trademark counterfeiting and cyber-squatting case against 232 websites which sold copies of Burch’s handbags, flats, and accessories. After none of the 232 defendants answered the complaint, the Court awarded damages of $164 million and ordered that the counterfeit websites be turned over to Burch. The $164 million is the largest settlement of this type. Additionally, the Court used the process provided in similar cases involving The North Face and Ralph Lauren which ordered third-party payment facilitators, such as PayPal, to disgorge any money in Defendants' accounts. While it is not expected that Burch will ever recover the full judgment in this case, the ability to take possession of the infringing domain names, along with the ability to freeze related financial accounts, gives the plaintiff a great tool in combating future infringement and sends a strong warning...

When thinking about whether or not to enforce a trademark, keep in mind the purpose of having the mark is to serve as an identifier of the source of the good or service for consumers. With this in mind, in order to preserve your own rights to a mark you have to try to maintain its strength as an identifier for your product.
In the event you have adopted a mark, an important part of maintaining it is to monitor the marketplace for others using identical or similar marks for the same or similar services. In the event you locate someone using the mark in a way that might cause consumer confusion, steps should be taken to eliminate potentially weakening of the mark. Consideration should be given to sending a letter advising the infringing user of your prior use and demanding that they stop using the mark (sometime referred to as a cease and desist letter). Before sending such a letter,...

Warning: this may be one of my more nonsensical posts.After seeing Iron Man 2 this week, I felt compelled to speak out about the misinformation propagated by Pepper Potts. During a scene in which Tony comes into Pepper's office, we overhear Pepper talking to an unidentified party about the suit. In the conversation (which I am editing to avoid spoiling it for anyone who went to see Robin Hood this weekend instead), Ms. Potts repeatedly references the intellectual property right in the suit being based on trademark law. My beef? It is clear from the story line, that the issue is one of patent law, not trademark.Trademarks generally serve two purposes: 1) to provide consumers with an assurance as to the source of goods or services; and 2) to protect the value that a business receives from creating and marketing a product. Patents, on the other hand, are intended to protect inventors...

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Kunkle Law PLC is a Twin Cities (Roseville) law firm serving clients in greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities metro area, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the rest of Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka, Washington, Carver, Scott, and Dakota counties. Trademark services are provided across the United States, Europe, the middle east, Africa, and Australia.